In its statement, the Qom-based international academic institution, which shoulders the mission of promoting pure Islamic teachings and unity within the Ummah, outlined several key points for public and elite awareness across the Muslim world.
Legitimate Defense, Not Warmongering
Al-Mustafa University emphasized that the Islamic Republic of Iran has never initiated any war in its contemporary history and that its strategy has consistently been based on peace and regional stability. It said Iran’s recent military actions were exclusively a legitimate, deterrent, and defensive response to attacks and aggressions carried out against its security and territorial integrity, facilitated through the misuse of the territory of certain neighboring countries, including the United Arab Emirates.
Aiding the Arrogant Front Against a Muslim State Is Religiously Prohibited
The university declared that Iran is an inseparable part of the mighty body of the Islamic Ummah. It stated that the UAE’s participation in, facilitation of, and complicity in warmongering by the United States and the Zionist regime against this Islamic country constitute the precise jurisprudential and religious definition of baghy —transgression. Aiding the front of disbelief and arrogance against fellow Muslims, based on explicit Quranic verses, is absolutely forbidden and leads to the weakening of the Islamic resistance front.
Commitment to Rationality and Good Neighborliness
The statement noted that both during the twelve-day imposed war and the recent forty-day conflicts, the Islamic Republic of Iran never abandoned the path of rationality, diplomacy, and the negotiating table. Iran’s definitive policy has always emphasized the principle of good neighborliness, mutual respect, and fraternal resolution of misunderstandings within the family of the Islamic world.
Al-Azhar’s Critical Responsibility
Addressing Al-Azhar directly, the statement said it expects the scientific and religious center to properly fulfill its enlightening mission at this historic juncture. Al-Mustafa urged Al-Azhar not to be influenced by media atmospheres and the deceitful policies of politicians, especially those affiliated with the West, but rather to rely solely on sound scientific and religious evidence, taking the Holy Quran and the noble Prophetic tradition as the criteria for its judgment so that truths are not presented upside down for the Islamic Ummah.
Adherence to Islamic Ethics in Combat
Al-Mustafa stressed that, contrary to the criminal conduct of the Zionist regime and its Western and regional backers, the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its retaliatory operations, fully adhered to Islamic and moral standards, neither targeting ordinary, innocent civilians nor destroying vital civilian infrastructure in those countries. The legitimate targets of these operations were American military bases in the region that were directly used as centers for planning and launching attacks on Iranian soil. In cases where the criminal enemy used the facilities of the aforementioned countries to damage the Islamic Republic’s infrastructure, reciprocal action was taken in accordance with the Quranic verse: “So whoever has assaulted you, then assault him in the same way that he has assaulted you.”
Al-Mustafa International University concluded by calling on all Islamic countries to converge and unite against the common American-Zionist enemy, and urged elites, scholars, and thinkers of the Islamic world to wisely and vigilantly thwart the divisive plots of the sworn enemies of Islam. It further called on them to demand that the rulers of countries who have placed Islamic territory at the disposal of disbelievers —allowing it to be used to launch attacks on another Islamic country— put an end to this grave sin.
